Cancer Awareness

Please stop reading this if you are not interested in my breasts. (Now there's a topic sentence that might not make it past an editor.) I suppose I have always been very interested in my breasts. As a preteen, I anticipated their arrival, and it turns out that — like most awesome things in my life — they showed up late. It took me a while to get used to them, but pretty soon I was letting them do their thing, which is exist on my front and command a weird sort of attention, as if they were disconnected from the rest of me. Before having breasts, for example, no one really stared at my ears or eyebrows, so I had no way of comprehending this strange new focus on my torso.

Thirty thousand pairs of sneakers. Thirty thousand pink ribbons. Thirty thousand people trying to beat something. n If nothing else, Sunday's Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure was really 30,000 stories. Tales of people whose lives have been somehow touched by breast cancer. Thousands of reasons for showing up to walk or run on a rainy, cold, dreary morning. n Stories of bravery and pain and love. Of courage and collapse, triumph and loss. n Amanda Brennan's story is about her mom. Debra Sawyer's is about fighting.

Seeing pink throughout October makes sisters Cara and Mary Kate Facchina feel fortunate. More than most teenagers, the Mount de Sales tennis players understand the importance of the pink initiatives supported by many high school teams during Breast Cancer Awareness Month to raise money for the cause and emphasize the need for early detection. Had it not been for early detection, their mother, Eileen Facchina, might not be coaching Cara and Mary Kate on the tennis court today. Seven years ago, Eileen Facchina was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Kim Wright can dial her friends on a pink phone, dressed in a pink outfit, perhaps embellished with a pink button or two or three. And when she surfs the Internet, most likely searching for more you-know-what, she's doing it on a carnation-colored laptop. When Wright, a breast cancer survivor from Reisterstown, tried to persuade her husband to buy a TV in her signature shade, she perhaps should have worn her sparkly, alluring rose gold necklace with the charm looped into the shape of an advocacy ribbon.

In August 2006, Phyllis Penn began making bracelets to raise money for cancer awareness. A few months later, Penn asked Sharon Meissner to join her fundraising efforts. Penn spends six months of the year in Florida and wanted someone to carry on with the bracelets, she said. Although she had never made a bracelet, Meissner agreed to do it. "My husband died of cancer 20 years ago, and my daughter has had cancer twice," said Meissner, of Bel Air. "And everyone in Phyllis' family, including Phyllis, has had cancer.

Reservoir and Howard joined together last week to help raise money for the Side-Out Foundation, which works to raise awareness of breast cancer through volleyball activities. Reservoir coach Carole Ferrante, whose team organized the event, said the Gators set a goal of $2,000 and by the end of the night had surpassed that mark. "We don't know exactly how much we've raised," Ferrante said. "It was over $2,000 at the school, but people can also give online, and that fund drive is still going on. So we're raising our goal to $3,000."

The art bra contestants - on a mission to spread breast cancer awareness - did not mince words. A lady bug bra bears the message "Love your Ladies." A 9-year-old titled his bra, "Why I Need You, Mom," and another one, with eyes peeking out behind fingers, is called "Don't be Shy - Get Your Mammogram." "Kiss for a Cure" is covered in pink Hershey's kisses and a miniature Sherlock Holmes, pipe and magnifying glass grace "Early Detection: It's Elementary!" The artist behind "Boob Bunnies" wrote in a blurb, "I have lived 2041 days since my diagnosis of breast cancer and I am still very thankful to be alive."

Howard County will host one of more than 500 Livestrong Day events nationwide Tuesday at Lake Kittamaqundi in Columbia. The free event, sponsored by the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults, will take place from 11 a.m. to noon. It will feature a raffle of autographed Lance Armstrong memorabilia, live music from the Blue Line and a box lunch from Clyde's and the Tomato Palace. Speakers will include County Executive Ken Ulman; Vic Broccolino, president and chief executive officer of Howard County General Hospital; and local cancer survivors.

Eighteen women in Nikki Karl's family have had breast cancer, ovarian cancer or both. Ten have died before the age of 42. Doctors X-raying Karl after she fell out of a tree at age 13 found a tumor on one of her ovaries. It was surgically removed, and she's been cancer-free ever since. The 38-year-old has a clear family history of cancer, but more than 80 percent of women who get breast cancer have no genetic mutation or family history of the disease. That percentage climbs to 95 percent when ovarian cancer is included, Karl said.

The first time Michael Sien of Eldersburg participated in a walk for breast cancer awareness five years ago, he noticed something that surprised him: very few men were among the walkers. At the time, he didn't even know anyone who had breast cancer, but he walked to support a cause that affects thousands of women - and more rarely, men - each year. "I started to think what could I do to make breast cancer and volunteering, in general, more on the radar for men," Sien said. Last year, Sien walked and crewed the National Philanthropy Trust's Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk in San Diego that supports Susan G. Komen For the Cure nationwide.